Publications

January 2024
Background Note

Evaluating Innovations in the Organization of Primary Care: What Type of Innovation Is It and How Well Does It Align with the Six Factors?

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and James Wallace

How can we evaluate if innovative health care ventures can do good—benefit society—and do well—become financially viable? This question is the topic of the first module in the Innovating in Health Care course book.

This note and "Health Stop (A): What Type... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Health Care and Treatment; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Mission and Purpose; Alignment; Health Industry

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Can Obamacare Be Saved?

On August 15th, Aetna announced that it would reduce by 80 percent its participation in the Obama administration’s public exchanges for health insurance policies in 2017, citing significant financial losses. The move came just a few weeks... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch and Emily Boudreau; Health; Health

12 Apr 2022
Blog Post

The Many Languages of Medicine to Impact Care Delivery

Ted Obi (MS/MBA 2023) is a current MBA student at HBS and a third year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His previous experiences include co-founding Melanin Doc, a non-profit supporting the next generation of minority View Details

April 3, 2020
Article

How Hospitals Can Manage Supply Chain Shortages as Demand Surges

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Gary P. Pisano, Raffaella Sadun and Thomas C. Tsai

The best practices in supply chain and operations management can help health care providers cope with the surge in patients and the supply shortages. They will help them create a comprehensive strategy aimed at both the demand- and supply-side roots of the problem. The... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Operations; Management; Strategy

Read Now

26 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

How Electronic Patient Records Can Slow Doctor Productivity

new study of physician offices transitioning to electronic health records (EHRs) used in managing patient care. In general, larger offices in the study that employed EHRs recorded productivity gains, but certain types of smaller practices... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

November 2023
Case

Swanson Health: Becoming a Super Seller

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Paige Boehmcke

Founded in 1969, Swanson Health sold vitamins, supplements, natural health products, and organic foods. Over the years, the company had successfully navigated multiple industry transitions as it expanded from a print catalog to sell products on its own... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Transition; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States

15 Oct 2014
News

Economic costs of Ebola rising as people shun human contact

14 Nov 2016
News

Politics Aside, We Know How to Fix Obamacare

07 Mar 2019
News

Jim Rooney, Haven, and Cord Cutting

01 Nov 2019
Video

Devi Shetty

Devi Shetty, founder of Narayana Health in India, reflects on the remarkable fact that, after 26 years of operation, the cost of heart surgery at Narayana Health has come down dramatically, and shares some of the strategies used by the group to maintain high quality... View Details

Gabe Weinreb

I am a second-year PhD student in the Health Policy and Management program at Harvard Business School where my advisor is Dr. Rob Huckman. I live in Brookline with my fiance Natalie and our two cats, Joe and Huey. Before grad school I was a research assistant in the... View Details

December 2009 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center: Breast Cancer Care in Taiwan

By: Michael E. Porter, Jennifer F Baron and C. Jason Wang

Taiwan's Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center has developed an integrated, team-based care delivery model for breast cancer care that is being expanded to other cancer types in 2009. A decade earlier, President and CEO Dr. Andrew Huang and the Center had worked... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Service Delivery; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Quality; Integration; Health Industry; Health Industry; Taiwan

05 May 2017
News

Here’s the real loser in the GOP health-care reform plan

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

How Technological Disruption Changes Everything

the fundamental causal mechanisms through which our lives have improved," Christensen said. Health Care Takes A Hit At the conference, Christensen looked forward to areas where disruptive technologies could soon or are already taking... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health

March 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Patient Care Delivery Model at the Massachusetts General Hospital, The

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Richard M.J. Bohmer and Emily Heaphy

Examines the implementation of a new patient care delivery model at Massachusetts General Hospital. Uses clinical and financial data to examine different choices for staffing non-physician health care professionals and to understand the challenges of managing change... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Massachusetts

October 2003 (Revised February 2010)
Case

The Duke Heart Failure Program

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Laura Feldman

Duke University Health System has for the past five years operated a specialized clinic for the management of congestive heart failure, a very common and costly condition in the surrounding community. Nurse practitioners, whose work is guided by highly specified... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Medical Specialties; Time Management; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Outcome or Result; Health Industry